Runaway Terror
By MicroCinema Scene • Nov 30th, 2003 • Category: NewsOne of the reasons I offered to write reviews for MicroCinemaScene.com was because I’ve also had the opportunity to produce shorts as well as my own micro-budget feature. Not only do I enjoy the scene, but I also understand the trials and tribulations one goes through when trying to make a movie with a miniscule budget and limited resources. I also consider myself my biggest critic. I have a good idea what I’ve done - right and wrong - and I’m more than happy to take both the credit and the blame.
With that said, Mark Baranowski’s Runaway Terror is a good example for how difficult it can be in the do-it-yourself world of filmmaking. The back of the box cover indicates that the version I watched had been “re-edited, re-scored, and in color for the first time” - which makes me wonder what condition the original version was in.
The movie opens with an attractive young woman taking a shower (Ryli Morgan), and for a moment I thought we might be in the middle of a movie within a movie. Unfortunately that’s not the case - the movie really does start with a young wannabe starlet showering, and then being murdered by someone in a white mask. The story follows that woman’s twin sister (Ryli Morgan again) as she investigates the murder with a local detective (writer/director Baranowski). Our main suspects are a shady movie producer (Jami Harrelson) and his girlfriend/secretary (Murdock), each with a reason to kill.
As a story, Runaway Terror doesn’t break any new ground in the serial killer sub-genre. The story is told in a straight-forward manner, and the short running time of around sixty-five minutes is one indication that there isn’t much depth to the characters or their situation. The dialogue is adequate, and certain scenes are allowed to play out without any words at all - just watching the actors act, which was a nice change of pace.
Unfortunately, there isn’t much to recommend here. Technically, even with all of the re-mastering, Runaway Terror suffers from nearly every low budget limitation imaginable. The picture breaks up on more than one occasion. The pans are rough. The lighting ranges from decent to harsh. The audio sounds like it was recorded with an in-camera mic, which causes a terrible hum in half the scenes. At times the dialogue doesn’t synch up with the actors’ mouths. The framing sometimes cuts off the top halves of actors’ heads. Noisy neighbors and passing cars interfere with certain scenes. The clock on the wall that says 6:30 when the actors are talking about an 11 o’clock appointment. And so on. But if you’re a fan of techno music, there is plenty of that on the soundtrack. Unfortunately it’s over-modulated and will have you reaching for the remote to turn the volume down.
These things are all understandable when it comes to micro productions, but they hurt the viewing experience in the end. There are problems with the story as well, like why the producer doesn’t even react when he sees the sister of the murdered girl - the twin of the murdered girl he had just hired for his movie. Or why we see someone bleeding to death 45 minutes in, and it isn’t until a scene later that a voiceover explains why that person had been stabbed.
I can sympathize with those involved. When I first started watching Mark Baranowski’s Runaway Terror, I felt a kinship with the production. There were elements in both the story and the final product that I could relate to, from the masks the killers wear (theirs white, mine black) to the problems of trying to mount a feature production essentially by yourself. If you’re interested in seeing how one goes about making a do-it-yourself movie and the risks you run, by all means check out Runaway Terror. There’s an extended collection of bloopers and outtakes that detail everything that can - and will - go wrong with a production. Chirping birds, neighbors with lawn mowers, hiding the script just off camera for easy reference, the director and the actor being the only two people on set - all of this and more is shown in a revealing look at how things are done on the micro-budget level. It’s just a shame the feature itself wasn’t as enlightening.
One and a half stars.
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